Text Catalogue is a growing research and discourse initiative which documents and questions how people occupy space – how they territorialise – and how they sometimes break patterns of occupation – deterritorialise – in productive and unexpected ways. These instances of de/territorialisation are documented in short, discreet stories called texts, observed serendipitously in day-to-day encounters and collected to form a catalogue. Text Catalogue explores how architecture shapes people and how people shape architecture; looking at cities, landscapes, towns and villages; from fancy buildings to common place mundanities. Seemingly unrelated narratives, when collected and indexed, are grouped together in different combinations to form overarching themes of exploration, such as Housing, Dwelling, and Migration.
Text Catalogue was founded by Ella Fleri Soler and Andrew Darmanin, to enable alternative processes of documentation, research and production in architecture and the allied arts. Through recent projects and collaborations texts take on new meaning as documents of multifarious forms, stretching the catalogue towards one which curates and archives anything from observations, conversations and ideas, to art and buildings. Text Catalogue is concerned with both process and product, testing the potential reaches of architectural research’s interrogations (political, cultural, economic etc,) through content writing, workshops, publications, exhibitions and art installations. The typology of projects is continuously expanding through self-initiated work or collaborations, where collaborators have included the University of Malta, MASSA Journal of Architecture, the Valletta Cultural Agency and Aġenzija Żgħażagħ.
textcatalogue.com 